


Your Name Like a Song (I Sing to Myself)

by thequeergiraffe



Category: X-Men: Days of Future Past (2014) - Fandom
Genre: Angst, No Sex, Spoilers for DoFP, blood cw, despite the romantic sounding title this fic isn't any gayer than the movies are, i needed this okay, legit he's in prison for the entire thing i'd apologize but i'm not sorry at all, no explicit romance, prison fic, prison!erik, sort of a vignette?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-06-11
Updated: 2014-06-11
Packaged: 2018-02-04 05:36:16
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,475
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1767418
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thequeergiraffe/pseuds/thequeergiraffe
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He never doubted Charles would come for him, not in those early days.</p><p>---</p><p>This entire fic exists because I was so upset over the way Erik says "Charles?" as the elevator doors open during his escape scene in DoFP. It made me feel like he'd been hoping for that moment for a decade.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Your Name Like a Song (I Sing to Myself)

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this in a day and I'm a little rusty on my fic jawn so I may come back and tinker with this later. Also: this should be mostly canon compliant? Things might be a little wibbly but if there's something that directly defies canon please do let me know and I might change it? Thanks :)
> 
> Also, the title is from Richard Siken's "Saying Your Names".
> 
> Also also, I'd like to thank my friend Katie for acting as a sounding board for a lot of these ideas, and for helping me out with the dialogue at the end.

He never doubted Charles would come for him, not in those early days. Yes, they had their differences, but the bond between them was strong and Charles was no fool. He’d let Erik wallow for a month, maybe, a few months at most, and then he would come. Erik would’ve staked his life on it.

His intake picture at the first “facility” – a high security prison, by human standards, though Erik felt it was laughably inadequate for mutants – showed a smiling young man, his blonde hair pushed out of his face, his eyes defiant and angry and more than a little bit taunting. He didn’t look like a guilty man in chains; he looked like a god humoring his human captors, for the time being. Indomitable, fierce, proud even in his horrid prison grays, it pleased him to see his human guards quake with fear when they approached him.

Even so, he didn’t mind the reputation he gained in his first few months; the guards began to refer to him as “a perfect gentleman” and allowed him all sorts of creature comforts: nail clippers, once a week; a safety razor, every few days (and oh how his guards had clapped and hooted over his hands-free shaving technique, as though Erik were a well-trained monkey performing a particularly keen trick); even a small transistor radio which he put next to his bunk, all those delightful metal components singing to him more sweetly than the music ever could.

Still, prison was dull. He filled his time attempting to contact Charles, focusing all of his energy on one-sided conversations which consumed him for hours at a time. The incident was national news (he often listened to the coverage on his radio), but it was unlikely Charles knew where he’d been taken, so Erik would lie in bed, eyes closed, hands clasped, projecting images of the facility, his cell, the faces of his guards, with as much force as he could muster. At other times – night, usually, the cell block silent and dark – he would try to relay the truth of what happened. He would think about his file on JFK, the contents carefully memorized. He’d think about the terror and anger that twisted in his stomach when he realized what _they_ were going to do: assassinate the most powerful man on Earth, simply because of his mutated genetics. He thought about the curved bullet, the bitterness like copper on his tongue when they stopped him – _too late_ , he thought, but he was wrong – and the way the tranquilizer had dampened him, his powers impossible to reach, his mind fuzzy and then blank, his body going limp in the grass. He tried to let Charles feel the aftereffects of the drug and the horrible realization that everything had gone wrong, and the way he had mourned Kennedy’s death, not as one mourns a lost leader, but as a man mourns lost kin. He tried to make it clear to Charles that he had done nothing wrong.

Other times, sleepless nights spent pacing in his cell, he thought about Charles, about what they could’ve been and the things that had come between them, and his mind called out with all its strength: _I regret, I regret, I regret_.

\---

Months passed. The shine had worn off of Erik’s shaving trick – “No powers!” the guards snapped now – and so he shaved with razor in hand, like everyone else. The stack of books beside his bed grew and grew. He thought often of, and to, Charles. The resounding silence hurt him more than he cared to admit.

Still, he believed Charles would come for him. Had their roles been reversed, Charles wouldn’t have spent a single night in prison, but Erik understood that he was being punished for more than just the death of the president. Charles was even angrier than Erik had initially presumed, apparently, but he couldn’t stay angry forever. He would relent soon. He wouldn’t leave Erik there to rot.

Erik’s days settled into a well worn routine. He ate at dawn, the spent the next several hours gently moving every single piece of metal within a one mile radius, not enough that anyone would notice, but enough that he could keep himself sharp. Then a nap, an hour of physical exercise (no weights; they didn’t trust him enough for that), lunch, and a nice long chat with Charles. He had a list of topics, scrawled on a sheet of yellow legal paper, which he covered daily. Firstly, and most importantly, were the plans he’d made for his imminent escape. He altered this plans every couple of days, and spent a considerable amount of time laying out the details for Charles each day.

The next subject was only briefly dealt with. Erik would take a deep breath and then sigh, “I understand that you are angry, and I accept it.” He didn’t add “begrudgingly”, though if Charles was listening he undoubtedly picked up on that. It was as close to an apology as Erik was willing to come, especially without being sure Charles was even listening. Then he hurriedly moved on.

Next, he would enquire after the school – without response, of course, though he waited several polite seconds before moving on – and then he would discuss one of the books he’d recently read, or envision a chess board, his pawn settled firmly on e4, waiting for Charles’ move.

This served several purposes. For one, he missed his friend. Had missed him, in fact, since the moment they had separated. Likewise, it kept his mind busy. Erik didn’t necessarily mind solitary confinement (he had no interest in mingling with the human prisoners) but there was only so much reading a man could do before he grew restless. Most importantly, however, Erik hoped this constant barrage of conversation would bring Charles to his rescue sooner rather than later. He could make an escape attempt on his own, certainly, but he thought his odds were relatively slim. Although there was plenty of metal, enough to cause plenty of mayhem, his guards had tranquilizers on them at all time. Perhaps he’d get a little destruction in, maybe he’d even briefly leave his cell, but it wouldn’t be long before he was slumped to the floor, stunned into a daze and unable to use his powers. He was growing terribly antsy, but he wasn’t stupid. Charles wanted him impotent and fuming, and for the time being he would acquiesce.

In the evenings, Erik ate his dinner, exercised for another hour or two, and then did some reading. Some nights he fell promptly asleep at dusk; other nights he lay awake, his blood boiling, cursing Charles and the human race and even President Kennedy’s open-top convertible. But most of the time, when he felt like this, he ranted at Charles – the only recipient of his ire with the potential to hear him.

“You think your compassion is a strength,” he would spit, out loud, to the cracked cement ceiling. “It’s not. It’s a weakness. What do you think being compassionate towards humans is going to buy you? Wake up, Charles! How many more of us must suffer before you understand?” Sometimes he would broadcast images of what they could’ve done together, the world they could’ve created. Could still create, if Charles would stop throwing his childish strop and come free him. “You could make them accept their obsolescence,” he would explain patiently to the ceiling. “You could make them _love_ subjugation, just by thinking it at them. Is that so reprehensible to you? They would be happy, and we would be safe.”

The response to these midnight tirades was the same as ever: silence.

\---

It took a year for Erik to realize Charles wasn’t coming for him. That was a bad day; he woke up a few days later, restrained and in a padded room, with a horrible headache and the taste of blood in his mouth. His resolve, however, was renewed. So, Charles wasn’t coming (and in his heart he still didn’t quite believe that); Erik had other friends. Once he was back in his own cell – once he could prove that he would be a good boy once more – he sat down with pen and paper and toyed with ideas for sending a message to Mystique. He didn’t blame her for not coming for him of her own volition. Unlike Charles, she was busy saving lives with the Brotherhood. Besides, if he was honest with himself, it’s not like he would’ve rescued her, either. Not unless he needed her.

Erik was a very powerful mutant, with very few moral convictions. Undoubtedly someone would need him soon enough.

\---

He spent the next few months mailing coded messages to various international newspapers to be printed in their classified sections. He had no idea where Mystique might be or what she might be doing, and he didn’t think it was terribly like her to check the paper’s classifieds each day, but it was worth a try. He knew it was a long shot, though. After months of no response and no sign of either Mystique or Charles, Erik made up his mind. He was going to escape on his own.

\---

Erik’s intake picture at his second facility showed a man recently shorn of hair and deloused, his lip cut and one eye darkened, his chin raised, but his mouth twisted with such petulance that he looked ten years younger than he was, and sullen. It wasn’t until he was alone that he allowed himself to mourn what had happened. There had been such chaos, so much death…he didn’t regret the human causalities as much as he might have once (it had been a long time since someone had managed to temper his rage), but two mutants had died during his attempted escape, and for that he was truly sorry. He didn’t know their names, nor their gifts; he only knew of them because his new human guards and thrown their deaths in his face, hoping to dissuade him from having any more “outbursts”. He made a mental note of the guards’ names and faces, and added them to an ongoing list. They would regret their words one day, Erik would see to that.

His new cell was bare of comforts; he was given a mat on the floor, a pot to piss in, and not much else. The walls were stone, the door cement. When he closed his eyes and felt for metal, that first day, the absence of it made his chest feel hollow, like something integral to him had been scooped out. For the first time in this debacle, he felt truly weak.

It took a few weeks to train his mind, to find the strength to reach farther than he ever had before. When he felt it, that cool brush against his mind like the touch of a long-missed lover, he actually cried out. The noise of it brought the guards; he woke up three days later, slightly bruised, in a different cell. It didn’t matter; he could feel it now. And he was getting stronger every day.

\---

Four more escape attempts, four new facilities. Each time, he knew, he was making it harder on himself… and any mutant who might decide his powers were worth the risk. His incarceration had lasted almost five years at this point. Any hopes he might’ve had for Charles, that he would come, or at least speak to Erik in his mind, had all but faded away. He didn’t talk to the ceiling at night anymore. In the last year, he’d hardly spoken at all.

The intake room at the Pentagon prison (inescapable, they said, and although Erik doubted that was strictly true, he suspected he would be working at it for a very long time) had a two-way mirror. It wasn’t a risk; Erik was pretty heavily sedated and tidily restrained. Still, it was a surprise to see it, to see himself reflected in it. He looked so much older than he remembered. The last facility had buzzed his hair off upon entry, like the others before it (and how that had rankled at his vanity) but that had been over a year ago, and his hair had grown back dark and curly. He’d never seen it that way before; it fascinated him.

“All right, inmate, eyes on the camera,” one of the wardens called, and then there was a flash. His last cell had been dark, day and night indistinguishable, and the bright light made him wince, his stomach roiling. It was just as well that they put him under, then. If they hadn’t, it’s very likely he would’ve vomited down the front of his new uniform.

\---

“Mind the glass,” the note said. It didn’t surprise him that someone had finally seen fit to free him; that, he knew, had been inevitable. It was a little surprising to see they had a sense of humor about it. He considered, briefly, the compatriots he’d had before his imprisonment. None of them had been particularly funny.

He didn’t recognize the silver-haired kid, but still he wasn’t terribly taken aback. Undoubtedly the game had changed a little in the last decade; he was simply being introduced to one of the new players. The boy was good, that’s all that mattered. Erik never tired of watching his people do exceptional things. He made quick work of the glass above Erik’s head, and Erik pulled himself free of his cell with relative ease. “We have fifteen seconds before the door opens, and then guards will come through that door,” he told the boy, his voice a little hoarse. He tried to think of the last time he’d spoken to anyone, and couldn’t remember. And then things were moving too quickly for him to think of anything at all.

In the elevator – each floor bringing him closer to fresh air and freedom and a plethora of metal to play with – the boy quipped, “They say you can manipulate metal.”

“They?” Erik asked, considering for the first time, that, however unlikely, it was possible his “rescuers” were acting with malicious intent. He swallowed back his nausea – the boy had a gift, but not one he wished to use again anytime soon – and steeled himself for a fight. And then the elevator doors opened, and the fight went out of him in a single exhaled breath. “Charles?”

Charles swung before Erik could recollect himself. The sudden bloom of pain in his face was shocking, partly because Charles had actually hit him, and partly because he was actually feeling pain. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d been hurt.

He felt miraculously, terribly alive. There was blood in his mouth, iron-rich and heavy on his tongue. It was the sweetest thing he’d ever tasted.


End file.
